


Separate Maintenance

by ljs



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-26
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-11 09:33:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4430249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ljs/pseuds/ljs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A vignette set a little while after the series-end. (More series than book-compliant.) </p>
<p>Of marital visits, magic, and friends; of different kinds of separate maintenance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Separate Maintenance

Jonathan Strange leaned his forehead against the window and listened to the enchanted rain flowing down the glass.

He was alone at the moment. After he and Mr Norrell had been lost within the Raven King’s spell, within a prison which looked very like Hurtfew Abbey but cast adrift from the world, they had agreed that each needed his own room apart from the library. Painstakingly they had made their own places, and whenever Jonathan fell prey to melancholia, he retreated to solitude.

He wondered now if this recurring melancholy, so unlike the man he had once been, was a lingering effect of the madness he had courted in his quest to save Arabella. More likely, he thought, it was his enforced separation from Arabella that prompted his sadness.

“Bell,” he said, his eyes still closed, and spread his fingers against glass as he once had done to move through such barriers onto the King’s Road. But the roads were now closed to him, the barriers held fast, and –

“Jonathan,” said Arabella. “My dear Jonathan.”

“It is not the mark of a true king, even a faerie king, to taunt a man so,” he said, his eyes still shut. “Do not torture me with manifestations of whom I cannot have.”

“Jonathan!” said Arabella again, more sharply. “When one’s wife calls upon one, it is only good manners to greet her in return.”

He paused. Then, “That quarrelsome tone certainly _sounds_ like my wife,” he ventured, yet still kept his eyes closed lest tears join with Norrell’s magical rain.

“Jonathan Strange, if you know what’s good for you, you shall look at me at once,” said Arabella firmly.

With his forehead still touching the glass, he opened his eyes.

The glass between them was black, but he saw, as if through a nighttime window, his own lit candles and a matching set of tapers on the other side. There, washed by candlelight here and there, smiled Arabella.

“You are not the only one in this family who has learned something of magic,” said she. Spreading her fingers to mirror his, she pressed into the glass.

For a moment, just one breathless moment, he felt her beloved touch. He swallowed hard. “Just so,” he said, with a fair attempt at his old cheer. “I have always been of the opinion that you are more gifted than any other person of my acquaintance.”

“Gifted at what?” said Arabella. Her mouth seemed close enough to touch, but this he didn’t try. He didn’t think he could bear the disappointment.

“Gifted at everything,” he said.

She pressed her lips together, as she had sometimes done in their life together when she wished to bite back tears or impetuous speech. He swallowed hard again, tasting salt and unhappiness, and deliberately turned his mind to happier things. “And how are you, Bell darling? Still in Venice?”

“Yes, of course. Emma – Lady Pole, I mean – has joined me and Flora Greysteel here, and we are much admired,” said she, with a delightfully arrogant tilt of her chin.

“One cannot blame the Venetians for that,” he said. “I suspect the three of you together is a most charming sight indeed.”

“Yes, of course,” she said again. Then, suddenly more serious, “And we ladies have been learning what magic we can, too. Flora asked Lord Byron to acquire a work of magic said to have been written by Mr da Vinci, which should arrive any day—"

“Bell,” Jonathan said over her words, “I and Mr Norrell are imprisoned at the will of the Raven King, at the will of True England. Whatever good will an Italian magician do?”

“A little book of Italian spells, written four centuries ago by a magician who had travelled in England, provided the means of my speaking to you now, Jonathan,” said she, eyes flashing her controlled annoyance at him. He half-smiled at the familiar, much missed sight. “And I am yet a true Englishwoman, and I claim the magic of our home.”

He thought of telling her to be careful; he thought better of it, and said instead, “If anyone can do it, my love, you can.”

“Just so,” said she, and the little line of temper between her brows disappeared, and she laughed.

He laughed with her, although the effort cost him.

As her laughter faded, her fingers tapped against his through the glass. He felt a singing current through his body – magic, but more than magic; a kind of delirious arousal. “My dear, I have something for you,” said she.

“This is the second-best thing you could give me, Bell -- this moment with you. The only thing better would be to be there.”

“I would make even this moment happier for you,” said she. “But keep your hand on the glass, touching mine.”

Her other hand had disappeared below his sight-line, and now brought forth a finely carved candlestick. This she set before her. She reached back to where he could not see.

The enchanted rain on the glass flowed more strongly. His fingertips felt wet. And below, where he was hardening for her – “Arabella, what are you doing?”

“Giving you ease,” she said, in a tone which suggested both bedroom pleasures and her usual spousal frustration at his obtuseness. He marveled, even while he rose further, that she could so combine moods, and he loved her for all of it, for everything.

Her other hand came forth and wrapped tightly around the candlestick.

It was as if she wrapped her hand around him.

“Arabella!” he said on a strangled gasp, and rested his other hand on the glass.

“Hush now. My wifely duty, you know,” she said huskily, and moved her hand on the candlestick as she had been wont to do to him, fast and hard.

He felt it, he felt the pleasure keenly. But – “I haven’t even unbuttoned my breeches, Bell.”

“Well, perhaps you will have to have yourself a laundry day afterward,” said she, and pulsed her hand around him once, twice, thrice, and then brought her thumb up to caress the lip of the candlestick.

Helplessly -- for it had been such a long time for him, so empty and so long – at that touch of hers, he spent himself.

“You needed that,” she said briskly, and let go of the candlestick.

Helplessly he began to laugh. “Only you, my love. Only you.” Then, mastering himself, “And what can I do for you, Arabella? What do you need?”

“I need you back,” she whispered. In the rain and candlelight her eyes seemed dark and huge and sad. “I need you without the distance of magic.”

“I will work harder,” he said, and it was a vow. “I will end this enchantment.”

“I believe in you, Jonathan,” said she, and pressed her lips to the glass. He felt that sweet pressure on his own mouth, as if touched by a flower. He tasted nectar and salt. Then, matter-of-fact, “But it may well be I who rescues _you_. That is the usual way of things.”

“Just so,” he said, and laughed even as she let go and faded away. “Just so, my love.”

The words fell echoing in his room, and he was alone again in front of a window streaked with rain.

…………………………………………………

The Venetian drawing room was soft, its fine walls pink in the light from the fire and the candles. Emma and Flora looked up from their sofa when Arabella, only a bit unsteady, entered.

“Did it work?” Emma asked eagerly, and Flora added with a hint of knowing laughter, “Did you manage a… _conversation_ with Mr Strange?”

“Yes,” Arabella said, and lowered herself into a chair by the fire. “And yes, of a sort.”

Emma and Flora laughed at that, their voices chiming together merrily. Arabella had grown accustomed to the sound, and no longer thought of Faerie and damned bells when she heard it. Nevertheless, she closed her eyes against a sudden wave of loss. So much had been taken from her. So much.

“Arabella?” Emma said.

When Arabella opened her eyes, she found Emma bending over her. “Are you well? Was the magic too much?” her friend asked solicitously.

“I'm perfectly well, thank you,” Arabella said, and made herself smile. “Has the post come this evening?”

Emma touched Arabella’s cheek in a fond, kind acknowledgement that Arabella was done talking of this, then went back to her seat. As she resumed her place, she said, “Indeed. I have heard from Sir Walter.”

“He writes to confirm Emma’s separate maintenance,” Flora said, “and to ask for leave to visit.”

“And will you give him such leave?” Arabella said.

The room’s quiet was broken by the crackle of flames. “I do not know,” Emma said. “I am not sure I wish for a husband.”

“And yet some of us never stop wishing for ours,” Arabella said, more harshly than she intended.

“Oh, my dear,” Flora said, and “I know, dearest, I’m sorry,” Emma said, and then it was quiet and fire again.

When Arabella felt in command of herself again, she said, “I beg your pardon, Emma. You must do as you feel right. Every woman should be her own mistress and make her own choices.”

“Agreed!” Flora and Emma said, applauding the sentiment. Then Flora added, “Shall I ring for tea? Or shall we have wine?”

“Wine, by all means,” said Arabella, smiling, and hid her trembling hands in her lap.

Her beloved Jonathan’s hands had often had a tremor after doing great magic, she recalled. She and he were no longer separate in that experience. She understood so much more about him now.

Closing her eyes, she pressed her lips together. She tasted nectar and salt. Despite their separation, she smelled enchanted rain, and Jonathan.


End file.
